Bottle II, Margaret Atwood

"Bring your ear down closer. Put your hand over the other ear. Think of seashells. There. Now you can hear me. (...)

How did it come to this? My present arachnid state, I was young once, I was beautiful, I was sought after. I had picturescque robes and exceptional talents. I uttered portents in caves: there were lineups, there were waiting lists for them. How did I come to be so tiny, so translucent, so wispy, so whisperey? How did I come to be shut up inside this bottle? It's an unsual story, an incredible story, a story that could not take place today. I'm not sure I still believe myself, though I'll tell it to anyone who'll lend an ear.

Right now that means you. I am not a curio, my friend. Or rather I am a curio, but you'd have to say the curio, the best one of all. Only the very curious acquire curious like this. And you are a curious person, you look into the medicine cabinets in the bathrooms of people you hardly know, you're an avid listener, you're driven to listen, you'll listen to anything. I understand you: I too was curious once, like you. We are both the kind of person who takes the corks out of bottles. Not bottles of wine: bottles of sand."

By the Canadian Margaret Atwood, excerpt of "Bottle II" in "The Tent" (2006)

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Havia tempos que a queria pôr aqui, desconcertante, a desconcertar-me as contas. Demasiado feminina, demasiado quebrada, demasiado pensada, demasiado realista, demasiado sem sentido ou consentida. O que eu possa dizer está errado, porque o que ela diz foge das palavras. Searching for HER-self.

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